(2 of 2)
The escalating Soviet presence puzzles Western experts in only one respect: whether it is born from a genuine Ethiopian desire to be close to Moscow or from sheer necessity. The likely answer: sheer necessity. The Dergue depends on Soviet arms in its smoldering border conflict with Somalia. Moscow has also sent helicopter gunships, artillery and military advisers to supplement Ethiopian troops fighting guerrillas who seek independence for the northern province of Eritrea. Mengistu also needs help against armed rebellions in several other provinces.
The task of maintaining the boundaries of the old empire is taxing Mengistu's government and its Soviet mentors both militarily and economically. More than 30% of Ethiopia's $1.2 billion budget is allotted to the army and air force, and conscription has been introduced to bolster recruitment for what is already the largest army in sub-Saharan Africa. When Mengistu visited Moscow last year, the Soviets asked for repayment of at least part of the $2 billion they had loaned for arms. The Ethiopian leader reportedly just shrugged his shoulders and told his hosts that his country could not pay. Indeed, it cannot. Ethiopia's export earnings in 1981, most of it from coffee, totaled a mere $398 million. Says a Western official: "The Soviets will have to accept the cost of underwriting a Marxist revolution or risk losing their staunchest ally in Africa."
Although there is little doubt that the Soviets will choose to stay, their pervasive role in Ethiopia is far from fully supported. Traders in Addis Ababa's thriving bazaar, the Mercado, resent Soviet browsers, who rarely have enough money to buy their merchandise. "They keep to themselves and won't even employ Ethiopians as cooks or drivers," complains one resident. That undercurrent of hostility perhaps explains why Mengistu has not tried to impose many East-bloc values on a country whose Western links go back to the arrival of Portuguese explorers in the 16th century.
Meantime, most evidence suggests that the first bloom of the revolution is beginning to wilt. Agricultural output, the key to any improvement for Ethiopia's impoverished peasants, has stagnated: state farms set up after the revolution cover 4% of Ethiopia's arable land and consume 76% of available fertilizer, yet 80% are operating at a loss.
Despite such failures, Mengistu remains committed to Communist models of development. Hopes that Mengistu's election as chairman of the 50-member Organization of African Unity during its meeting in Addis Ababa last month might moderate his stance have already been dashed. Less than a week after his designation, Mengistu appeared under a hammer-and-sickle emblem to condemn "Western opposition to socialism" as "the main threat to world peace." It was enough to convince even those who are skeptical of the durability of the Soviet link of exactly where Mengistu intends to steer Ethiopia and, if he can manage it, the rest of the continent.